While the plot is certainly centered around the struggle between Shizuku and Issei, the real struggle of the story is the exploration of self through which Shizuku has to go in order to be able to relate to his late father. Shizuku has had an in-depth education on the ways of wine but has never drank any, putting him at a severe disadvantage at a blind tasting. Issei has had a lifetime and celebrated career as a wine taster, but only one week as Yutaka’s son. As the plot progresses, Issei doesn’t try to be any more a son to the departed, but Shizuku (with help from apprentice sommelier Shinohara Miyabi) goes through various trials that bring him further and further down into the cellar of the subject that was his father’s passion.

The aforementioned trials are the bulk of this manga, and the wines they center around (all 100% authentic) are the respective heft of the chapters. This is made most obvious via the attention paid to the visual rendering of any panel featuring bottles or wine. Character designs and settings are distinguished but rather average in most instances, while any scene involving wine, wine bottles, or the various visual metaphors employed for the euphoric experience of tasting wine (a Queen concert, a maiden in a field, a merry-go-round, a scene from Strauss’s Salome) come across not as photorealistic but as lovingly crafted portraiture. Any serious wine drinker will love this manga for this aspect alone. To all readers, the alternation betwixt what I’ll call character and bottle style imbues this 424-page volume with a diversity of visuals that whets appetites for the next feast.

There is also a LOT of textual description within these pages: vinter lineages, wine taste, wine smell, how to drink wine, how to pour wine, when to pour wine, wine origin and similarity ... you get the gist.  Casual readers would probably find the material a bit too dry for their tastes were it not for the almost beguiling charm derived from the pacing of Shizuku and Miyabi's adventures as well as humor written a little too perfectly via extended metaphors exploiting similarities in terminology between manga and wine (such as the conversation pictured on the right). So that, combined with the almost laughably yet convincingly applied left-field taste analogies (did I mention the Queen concert?) and their culmination, actually makes the manga a proverbial page-turner. The same characteristics contribute to readability for those in the know. Being shoveled information on decanting, vintages, vineyards, etc. can be downright tedious, but it is the mix of storytelling techniques and art that will elicit interest and propel wine connoisseurs through the book. While outright descriptions attempt to fill readers in on the wines as well as the experience of drinking them, the authors and illustrator do a fantastic job defining Shizuku and Issei via glimpses into their preparations for the upcoming battles.

Shizuku, whose first musical wine metaphor involves Queen, describes the wine admiringly as “somehow like classical” but not quite, with “a melting sweetness and a sharp rush of sourness.” Altogether not the most poignant of descriptions, but it is a Romantic one. Later on, readers get a taste of Issei’s musical leanings: Richard Strauss’s opera, Salome, which Issei associates with a “blood scented sensuality born of decadence.” If one sets aside the obvious sweet vs. evil leanings of those descriptions, the context in which they are delivered is as subtle delivery mechanism as any for showing a major difference between the main characters.

The perpetual learner, Shizuku mostly listens to others. When he does speak, usually to elaborate upon the characteristics of a wine at hand or demonstrate a wine-related technique, his flowery meditations are written such that they are more Zen moments of sensory exploration that seem identifiable to those surrounding Shizuku. Even the way he gives advice to people shows him to be a genuine helping hand — a person who keeps in mind exactly who he is reaching out to as opposed to showing off transcendent talent of taste/technique. The latter is more applicable to Issei’s preachy tone. A lecturer at heart, Issei often talks as though no one else is in the room ... even when it’s part of a dialogue. I wager readers can take everyone else out of a scene involving Issei describing wine and that scene would have the same effect. By the end of the volume, the main characters’ choices of musical allusions reflect not only how personable they are but their sense of modernity as well. So far, Shizuku involves the recent present (as much as 70s Queen is recent) and Issei invokes a century-old opera. As wine is consistently referred to as a living thing (temperamental), how closely each critic can pull similarities from their own near history is an indication of who keeps wine closer and who put it upon a pedestal of distance.

Not everything in The Drops of God is great. The pacing can seem laborious depending on personal experience with and interest in wine, and there are a few minor instances where clichés border on offensive and overly convenient: why must the wine wisdom and saving grace in one arc come from a homeless person ... who then ends up knowing the main characters and acting as a judge?! But even if I found myself getting angry at situations like that, keep in mind that I was getting angry because it wasn't perfect. Why? Because this manga is just that good, and I wanted it to be perfect. This graphic novel has actually influenced countries' wine sales and purchases fer chris’ sake. If nothing else, to quote Evan Minto, “it’s almost frustrating how compelling it is!”

I feel like I’ve let the prose get ahead of me for a manga review about a quintet of schoolgirls, all members of their school’s Light Music Club, doing silly things and being cute. Even so, I can’t deny the unsettling parallels between drug usage and reveling in the moé lifestyle. It can’t be ignored that there are some deeper machinations at work to have propelled this humble 4-koma gag manga into a merchandising empire that will keep a few creators and publishers financially sound for a time. It’s easy to forget there ever was a manga while the anime has commanded such a blinding presence in the last couple of years (primarily in Japan, different story in the West), and I would argue the franchise wouldn’t be half as successful had Kyoto Animation (KyoAni) not been handed the reigns. K-ON! is one of those cases where the adaptation overshadows the source material.

I would like to stop talking about what KyoAni has done for K-ON! and focus on the manga in question, but it must be said that Kakifly provided an excellent framework rather than a fully realized work. If your first taste of K-ON! came from the television show, the manga may come across as a downgrade. Most of the essential elements are there, but there’s something missing. We might as well get it out of the way now and admit that the missing piece is that deft, loving KyoAni touch that elevates erog and light novels to heights unimaginable by their original creators. While Kakifly competently illustrates the experiences of a group of high school friends, KyoAni breaths life into the world and quite literally makes the characters come alive and sing.

As unremarkable as I make it sound, Kakifly’s K-ON! is still one of the better slice-of-life manga out there. Like any good slice-of-life 4-koma, it’s easy to pick up and effortlessly flip through a whole volume in an hour. There are no ponderous subjects to tackle, hardly any moments of distress, and most conflicts are resolved through spirited enthusiasm and encouragement. Kakifly plays up the sexuality plenty of times, either for a joke or a splash page, but don’t get the wrong idea that K-ON! is some sort of subversive perversion of schoolgirl idolatry (the author isn’t nearly brilliant enough to make that work). Between the anime and the manga, Kakifly takes the crown for having the sexiest content of the two, but even he manages to show some restraint. There are no two-page full color spreads of bathhouse scenes with the Light Music Club, although I’m sure you’d be able to find a poster like that by browsing through K-ON! merchandise.

I don’t want to make any excuses for K-ON! to explain why I like it so much, which is why I need to admit that several criticisms about it are on the mark. K-ON! is about nothing, aside from an account of a high school music club across three years, and occasionally there are too many bare thighs and maid outfits for the typical manga cynic to stomach. K-ON!’s greatest strength that prevents it from collapsing into a sugary goo are its characters. Granted, this won’t work for everyone, but endearment towards the characters goes a long way in one’s enjoyment of K-ON!. While several characters are pulled from stock anime personalities (Ritsu is the energetic girl! Mugi is the kind-hearted rich girl! Nodoka is class rep among class reps!), the execution is such that everyone mixes together well. The anime might do it better, but the manga does a fine enough job convincing me that these people can be friends for reasons other than "we're in the same club". Each character possesses distinct minor traits and are allowed equal time to shine, avoiding favoritism in what is supposed to be an ensemble cast. The clean and attractive character designs avoid the usual anime embellishment, opting instead for a subdued and unified design across all characters. They are “real” enough while allowing Kakifly space to capture the characters' expressiveness.

For a manga that is wholly character-centric, Kakifly makes it look good by keeping it simple. The situations and jokes are such fluff, readers are likely to either grin like a creepy idiot or frown with measured disappointment. Don’t expect too much in-depth musical territory to be covered in the manga, as the girls spend most of their time lounging around in the club room or hanging out in town and each other’s houses. The leisurely pace of Kakifly’s high school utopia covers the usual circuit of Japanese adolescence, from school festivals to club trips. It’s hard not to get even a little invested in the world and characters when it’s made to be so appealing.

The Yen Press release of K-ON! is put together quite nicely. The pages are larger than the typical manga volume, so you won’t need to keep the book so close to your face to absorb the details. Each volume has an abundance of color pages and a few extras tacked on at the end, which I appreciate. The covers and spine are done up in each featured character’s image color and look appealing when lined up. I have minor grumblings about the localization, a welcome change to how I normally feel about having things I like put in a language I can understand by people paid to do so. I commend Yen Press for not writing out Mugi’s yuri-vision scenes after KyoAni killed that noise early in the anime adaptation. However, they dropped the ball by swapping out the onomatopoeia in Azusa’s nickname for the American equivalent, despite how damn near everyone who would pick up K-ON! knows what “nyaa~” is. Yen Press even goes to the length of including a glossary in each volume to explain details that might be lost on American audiences, yet they couldn’t keep “Azu-nya”. Not to mention how poorly “Azu-meow” tumbles out of my dumb American mouth.

I suppose the purpose of a review is to sell someone on a product, but I can’t put it out of my mind the weight one must carry to enjoy something like K-ON!. To the uninitiated, approaching K-ON! requires a blind leap. You either come out of it feeling gross or you discover a new dimension to that Japanese stuff you enjoy so much. If you’re like me, you won’t find out about the dark side of seinen manga target demographics until after you’re in too deep. You’ll most definitely be judged for being into “That Little Girl Crap”, but they can never hope to understand you or your moé. Like with any drug, remember to never take it too hard and always mind your budget.

The panel started very strongly, and I feel I have to give the panelists top marks for their ambitious introduction, which clearly showed that they had put a lot of thought into the content that they wanted to cover. Also praise-worthy was the miniature AMV that one of the panelists put together which set the tone of the panel as a whole — exploratory but still humorous.

The panel hit on a number of different points — the use of magical girls as a allegory for puberty, an examination of gender relations presented in the show, altruism, the existence of the Ubermensch and role of a deity (if there is one) in the shows universe. All of the individual points were well presented, in particular during the altruism and "Where is God?" sections where the panelists had some very good exploratory discussions amongst themselves. I would have greatly enjoyed more instances of this as opposed to the sections where the three panelists took turns handing off the same argument between each other. The panel certainly had enough meaty content to live up to it's name and presented it in an approachable, engaging manner.

Sadly, this is the part where I write up a small laundry-list of niggling issues I had with the panel, none of which "ruined" the presentation but taken together weakened it. Primary among my irritations was the over-use of PowerPoint slides — at some points the panelists exhibited my pet hate habit of reading directly off of the slides and not adding anything to the text on screen. This, combined with the aforementioned lack of debate between the panelists left some very interesting points relatively unexplored. The slides also contained numerous typographical errors — not a major issue in itself but combined with previous niggles was indicative that the content presented could have done with an additional critical look to shore up the arguments presented and provide a more "solid" talk overall. In particular the lack of a proper conclusion before the floor was opened up for Q&A at the end of the panel left me feeling somewhat unfulfilled.

An additional misstep was taken in the middle of the panel when the audience was asked to respond to a small question — sadly this did not go as planned as instead of answering the question participants instead rushed the mic to present their own theories and have miniature discussions with the panelists. This took a lot of the momentum out of the discussion and it never fully recovered.

To be frank, I did not expect great things from this panel — rather cynically I presumed the discourse would be at the level of message board chatter and I was very pleased to be proven wrong. The panelists here have some very good ideas and discussion points tobring to the table, and if they can take what they currently have and iron out the kinks then they will have a very robust and intriguing panel.

Giving at least $25 to the Kickstarter will net you a copy of the book if and when it is released, giving over $35 gets you the book plus a digital companion with "bonus art and commentary," and DMP has thrown in a bunch of other nice extras as the pledge amounts get higher. (The top prize, for pledging $145 or more, is a copy of Barbara signed by Tezuka scholar Frederik L. Schodt, your name at the top of the credits in the book, and a tour of the DMP offices, among other things.) And the way Kickstarter works, your money only goes through if the campaign is successful, so there's no risk.

As anime scholar Helen McCarthy points out in a blog post, this new strategy of financing publishing based on customers fronting the cost is certainly unusual. However, a changing industry environment requires changing business practices, and I think this is a really cool way to get fans involved and ensure that releases are actually going to be profitable. Plus, DMP is getting more Tezuka manga out there, and that's all I can ask for.

For more information on Barbara, check out the great profile of the manga over at TezukaInEnglish, and make sure you pledge to the Kickstarter right here!